Next Level University

#1575 - One Reason We ALL Need To Avoid Fake Confidence

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In personal development and self-improvement, confidence is often heralded as a cornerstone of success and fulfillment. Yet, beneath the surface of this revered trait lies a complex web of perceptions and realities that can either empower us or lead us astray. In today’s episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros delve deep into the nuances of what constitutes genuine confidence as opposed to the veneer of fake assurance that is all too common in today's society.

Link mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700

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Show notes:
(2:03) The importance of right community
(3:55) The actual reasons behind
(6:20) Back in 2014
(10:56) Chad shares how Next Level Podcast Solutions transformed his podcast and provided invaluable assistance along the way.
(12:50) Uncomfortable truth
(16:02) Self-belief
(19:26) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Kevin:

Next level nation. Welcome back to another episode of next level university, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed yesterday's episode, episode number 1574. Does inspiration help you get your goals quicker? Today, for episode number 1575, we're gonna hit you with a quick one because Alan and I are all over the place. It has been. I cannot believe we are only, as of the recording of this episode, five days into the new year. It feels like it's been a month already. It is it's challenging Today's episode one reason we all need to avoid fake confidence.

Kevin:

This was an episode that I had in my mind. I was thinking a really good title would be one reason you need to avoid fake confidence and I was thinking to myself it's not Just someone listening, it's not just someone who will listen in the future, it's everybody. It's Alan and myself. It's everybody that I think Would benefit from at least hearing the episode and then maybe doing what they feel is right for them.

Kevin:

I was talking to someone the other day on a podcast episode and we were talking about. They said why is community so important? And I said I mean we all kind of know why. Because it dictates what's okay and what's not okay and Whether you feel like you belong. And we had a real conversation about it and I said but if we were to break it down to something very, very small and a very practical example, we have people on our team.

Kevin:

I said Alan, my business partner, and other individuals on on the team who have exercised Every single day for well over a year at this point and I said that's amazing, that's absolutely amazing. That is a feat that should be rewarded, celebrated. It's amazing, that should be looked up to. But in the wrong community, if you surround yourself with people who pretend to be confident but are not confident truly at the character level, at the internal level, they're gonna villainize you for that. Not all, not all of them. Some people might just recluse and say, oh, good for you and it maybe it's a mirror and they don't feel so good about themselves after, but there is a percentage of humans what that will villainize you because of that. I would much rather spend time with someone who says look, I don't have that much self-belief.

Alan:

What would be an example of someone who would villainize, because when you say things like that, I know that's true, but I don't know what that would even look like they might not villainize to your face. But what would they say behind the scenes? I did you see that, you see that post me.

Kevin:

You see that post the other day, alan worked out every day for two years like who cares, man, you know, or he's always posting shit like that, that, that type of stuff, right, that type of stuff.

Alan:

They might not say it's your face which is great, but still do you think that deep down they actually do admire it?

Kevin:

Yeah, I would say do to agree. It's really hard to say I don't know. This is one of those again. We did an episode on intuition recently. Intuitively I would say they'd like to get to the place where they can admire it. But if you have, I would much rather someone come to me and say I don't have that much belief in myself and it's something I'd like to get more, and I'd really love to improve my level of self-belief and the confidence I have as an individual. Because At least they just say look, I. It's almost like they're saying I really want to root for you, but honestly, if I'm being vulnerable, I'm struggling to root for myself right now, so it's gonna be really hard for me to to root for you. It's not that I don't want to see you win, I'm just afraid I'm gonna lose and I'm afraid you're gonna win without me, versus someone who says I'm gonna win no matter what. I don't, I don't care what you do. Like you, do you I want? Yeah, whatever, you can win too. That's not real.

Kevin:

There are people that might not have the confidence where you could go to them and say I've exercised every day for X amount of whatever, whatever the thing is that might trigger them, and if they're humble and vulnerable, they might say that's amazing, man, I wish I could do something like that. Versus, when you paid off whatever it was $90,000 in debt in one year Some people would say like dude, that's awesome, I wish I could do that. I'm in $90,000 of debt and it seems like I am never gonna get out. Good for you, man, that's awesome. But there's a subset of humans that are gonna be like dude.

Kevin:

Why do you have to brag about your accomplishments all the time? It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate, but I would argue that usually those are the people that are arrogant and they have fake confidence because they want people to think they're more confident than they are rather than just admitting man, I paid off $7,000 in one year and I thought that was good. Good for you, man. You must have been really grinding and hustling and I'm sure you sacrificed a ton that year to get it done. It's just a different conversation. So that's my early, preemptive, next level nugget for this episode Fake confidence, even if you're practicing, it is not going to lead to real results, and if you're surrounding yourself with people that have fake confidence, they're not going to treat you like someone who has real confidence would, and then you're gonna villainize confidence and it becomes this whole thing that you and I have really been experimenting with the last six, seven years now.

Alan:

Trying to make this as practical as possible. I've come to realize that a lot of people are confident from the outside in, but not from the inside out. That's the new way that I think of it. I think of it like three circles. The outer circle is what you see from the outside in, and the outer circle is what they want you to believe about them. The next layer is what they want to believe about them, and then the inner layer is the truth, and so I'll share this story.

Alan:

When I did, it was $84,000 in 2014. Back in 2014, I paid off all my school loans. That was my goal, and I did sacrifice a ton to do that and I did work really hard to do that and that was so awesome. That was like my main goal out of college just get out of there Noble goal, not something that was celebrated. But so I was going camping with this group of people and there was someone amongst this group of people who, I would say, appears level 10, confident from the outside in, but from the inside out I actually don't think this person's confident at all At all, which is wild to even think about, but anyways.

Alan:

So I ended up getting there and he's like, hey, man, what's happening? I'm like, oh, what's going on? Man, I'm celebrating, super excited. He's like, celebrating what? Are you celebrating Fourth of July? Cause it was Fourth of July Like a week before and I was like, no, no, no, I just paid off $84,000 worth of debt in a single year. I was so genuinely naive that that would actually be like a cool thing. I'm not even kidding. This is how naive I was. I actually thought that was fucking awesome.

Kevin:

I think it is. I don't know if I would have at the time. I probably wouldn't have at the time, but I do know I like I don't know.

Alan:

It's like I feel naive in that To me that's so awesome. I don't know, for me there's no planet where I would feel like that isn't awesome. But I'm starting to understand why that's not something you're supposed to say publicly. I guess I'm starting to get. I'm starting to get it. So this is just me being very, very honest.

Alan:

Back then I really didn't get it, like when he so he reacted. He's like dude, don't fucking brag. And I was like I remember being really messed up by that. I'm not even, I'm not even like making this worse than it was. I was messed up by that. That like got me to question my everything. Like wait, isn't that a good thing? I remember actually questioning it. In hindsight I really should not have questioned myself from that guy. Seriously, in hindsight it's really quite alarming how it's like Alan, you're fine, don't, don't you know he could never do that. That's that's why he's being a dick.

Alan:

And I remember saying what being proud of an accomplishment. And he literally said to me pride, that's one of the seven deadly sins. What? Okay, do you see how visceral I'm getting right now? Dude? I got a lot of that when I was growing up. I got a lot of that. I'm sorry that you're incompetent, but I was pumped and I worked hard for that and I don't want to have to hide that. I'm excited and I've now come to understand that I think a lot of us are hiding our struggles and our successes. I think almost everyone is actually.

Alan:

I think I remember one time I'll share this briefly I was at a family gathering this is like a couple of years ago and I remember I alluded jokingly to the fact that I'm attractive and there was someone in the room that got so mad at me and they're like, oh, and their reaction was like oh, I can't even like go near that. I'm not even allowed to go near the fact that I'm in shape and that I'm a model and that I'm attractive. It's almost like when you're really attractive, you like can't say it because you're immediately arrogant, even though it's a. I wasn't always attractive. See how different this lands. I'm good looking. Okay, that doesn't land at all for anyone If I say this.

Alan:

I was a prepubescent little high schooler who got no girls and no sexual attraction from any women and I felt so insignificant when I was. I didn't hit puberty and everyone else hit puberty. In high school, I was like literally such a loser. In high school I was such a nerd and such a loser. Everyone overlooked me, figuratively and literally, because I was so short. I was like five foot three. I was the third shortest person in the grade. I think you and Dave Cook were the only ones shorter.

Alan:

See how different that lands. And now I'm so blessed to be as good looking as I wanted to be. See how different that lands versus I'm good looking. What depends on the person? But, kevin, I used to not know the difference between those two things. Well, I know, but you again.

Kevin:

We've talked about this. You had a lot of not so nice people in your ecosystem at that point.

Alan:

Yeah, I didn't know that though.

Kevin:

Well, I don't know if anybody I remember you telling me Well later, but I didn't know at the time either.

Alan:

Yeah, I had so many people that were toxic and ego driven and you know what it comes down to for this episode. In hindsight, it's very, very clear that there was a ton of people in that group that are fake confident Most of them.

Kevin:

See, I had no idea, I'm not, you couldn't. I don't think you could because you're real confident. How could you? So I'm almost like being strong and then working out with a lot of other people that, like they load the weights up before you get there and they're like, yeah, I just finished, oh, that's what you were lifting, good for you. They never really lift the weight, but you do lift the weight. I think that's kind of and again, maybe that analogy won't land with the audience necessarily, but that it's just oh, you read, yeah, I read that book too. I read that book yesterday, I read the whole thing yesterday. Oh, you did. Yeah, what was your takeaway? I don't really remember. I don't really remember what my takeaway was.

Alan:

Like oh, you didn't read the book.

Kevin:

I don't deal with this issue, so that's that's why it's obviously it's different. It's a different episode for me than history, just to be as I.

Alan:

Don't even know this. The reason I got triggered on this episode for everyone listening is I Genuinely had no idea. I, I had no idea what fake confidence was. I had no idea. I never really faked confidence, not a ton. Honestly, I don't think I faked self-belief, man, as matter of fact, when I didn't believe in myself. It was a very short time in my life, but even then I didn't really fake it.

Alan:

I don't feel like, and I think there are times when I was arrogant, definitely. I mean I thought I could do a marathon and I did the half marathon and that was really Actually easier than I thought. The full marathon was way harder than I thought, so that was arrogant. But that's as far as my arrogance kind of goes. I Most of the things that I thought were possible were actually possible. So for me this is just such a bad triggering episode because I Actually thought those people liked me. I this is like really Hurtful for me to talk and think about that I thought those people were my friends and I just don't think they were ever and it fucking sucks.

Kevin:

I don't know. I think when you're young you don't really know. Yeah, I don't know if you really know what I just don't?

Alan:

I Don't think they wanted to see me win. Well, we and I always wanted to see them win.

Kevin:

I know, but that's because you felt you believe that you could win. We talked about this last night, the meet-up. I said I could be Allen and I could post the same thing, same exact thing, same exact verbiage, and I most. I would probably end up getting more love because I'm more of an underdog, even though a perceived underdog you know, it's yeah, it's hard.

Kevin:

That's. The other thing too is and I can't effectively speak to this and I definitely shouldn't have done this episode when we had a short, a short amount of time. We have 19 second retrospect. We'll do it. We could do a part two if you want, you and I can talk about. We'll talk about it behind the scenes, if you. Know, I think we should probably yeah if I was never someone who showed confidence, I don't know if I attracted a lot of fake confidence or if I would have stayed around.

Alan:

I think you repelled it because you hate you. It felt icky to you. Dude, we had a mentor once who was super fake confident. Yeah and I had no idea. You, you're the one who told me like I don't like him. Yeah, I had no idea that wasn't real. I'm not even kidding.

Kevin:

I had no clue, because mine actually was well, maybe that's one of my unique perspectives is I've been around you long enough to know like what real confidence looks like. I Seen you take massive L's, massive L's in front of large audiences and you're like it sucks for a minute, but the next day you're back at it. So I don't know, and you don't just say like I would ever screw what they think. I Don't know. Maybe I've just had, I've had, a very unique perspective where I've got to witness a lot of fake confidence from people and a Lot of real confidence from you and other people. I've I know a lot of people that are truly confident, but I Don't know, would have to do a part two, I think, if you want.

Alan:

Yeah, the next level nugget I would say is a lot of people have Believed that they want to believe in themselves, that they think self-belief. If they had self-belief they'd be, they'd be good. What I will tell you is Self-belief is important and I would say it's the most important thing. But I would say the more self-belief you have, the harder it is to fit it and that's that's I've. I've.

Alan:

Emily is that way too. She, she and I. I mean she's the most wonderful human being I've ever met and I've never seen someone more just Just villainized. For no, I mean, it's insane, it's literally insane. It's like she's the most wonderful person ever. You have no idea how much that person's heart is gunning for everyone. She wants everyone to win. She spends all day, every day, trying to help others be better and succeed. Her whole life is to help people be brighter and yet she's so attacked sometimes and I guess deep down, all it is is they just don't like themselves and they need someone to villainize.

Alan:

I just don't know if I'll ever get it, because when I was the least confident, there was a guy named Matt I know we gotta go who was so much of everything. I was not attractive, I was not in shape, I was not charismatic, I was a shell, I was not happy, I was a nerd and I was smart and I was. I had big goals, but other than that I didn't have a lot going for me and he was everything. I wasn't. And I remember I had to leave the room because I was so unhappy with myself and unfulfilled. But I never villainized him. I admired him. I still admire him and I never won't. I mean, it has been a little hard for me to see that he hasn't kept it up but, like I remember, ten years later he was blown away by me doing fitness shows and stuff and he's like, dude, I could never do that. He was actually humble, like you're talking about, and and I was like, of course, of course you could. Are you the guy? He was still jacked right. I mean this guy was the man right. So big fan, huge shout out to Matt.

Alan:

But I don't do that. Whatever that villain thing is, I mean I villainize people who are horrible, people who tear people down. Those people are not my people. I don't like those people. But I don't villainize. I mean, if you're gonna be successful, that's awesome. That's what's good for the world. You succeeding is good for the world if you're a good person and yeah, so we'll have to do another episode, but it gets me really emotional. I think it drove me more than I realized and I think unconsciously. This is so scary to say, but I think my stepdad was like that and I don't think he ever wanted. I think he was a lot like that. So I think it triggers me. Understandable, understandable. I know he was actually. He was definitely like that.

Kevin:

Well, I appreciate you being vulnerable and going there. Again, that was not my intention. I did not know, thought this was gonna be a nice smooth episode, kind of sail through, you know. But again, we learn. You and I have the opportunity, and sometimes it sucks, sometimes it's not a great opportunity, but we learn so much about ourselves by doing certain episodes, so I'm sure there's an unlock in this episode for you just as much as there is for someone watching or listening. All right, we gotta go, because I have a coaching call in one minute. Maybe tomorrow we'll do a part two, I don't know. Let me talk to Alan behind the scenes. I don't want to discuss that in front of everybody else. We can do it.

Alan:

Okay, tomorrow we're gonna do a part two.

Kevin:

Another reason you need to avoid fake people If you have not yet joined Next Elevation. Please do as always. We love you, we appreciate you, Grateful for each and every one of you and an NLU. We learn of fans. We have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Alan:

Keep it authentic Next time on Nation.

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Alan Lazaros

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Kevin Palmieri

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